el crispito

Just how smart it is to boycott American products and services is highly questionable, since many of those manufacturers employ immigrants or have factories in Mexico and Central America that produce the supply that is available locally. Emails circulating on the Internet advise protestors to boycott such places as Sears and Wal-Mart, although Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican businessman of Lebanese descent and the 3rd wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes, owns the Mexican branches of both these retailers. Even less understandable is the idea of not going to work if you're an immigrant in the United States, since you would be disrupting work for an employer that employs immigrants.

Yet the general idea is to demonstrate how important immigrant labor is in the United States, and on this side of the border, how important foreign markets are to United States businesses.

Both of those factors are difficult to ignore, if only because of the numbers involved. Recently, The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University compared a total employment change of 4.8 million jobs between 2000 and 2005 to estimated figures saying the country had gained 4.1 million new immigrant workers during that same time. Their conclusions indicate that 85% of the increase in the U.S. labor force was from foreign-born labor.

On the consumption side, Mexico is the largest per-person consumer of Coca-Cola® products in the world: 459 eight-ounce bottles per person, per year. Mexican sales account for 10% of the volume of all Coca-Cola® all sales worldwide. This is not surprising when you consider that the majority of Mexicans believe that foreign products are necessarily más rico than the Mexican ones, but it also doesn't hurt sales when Coca-Cola® pressures retailers to stop selling other brands. Nowadays, Mexican-brand sodas such as Topo Chico and Jarritos are very difficult, if not impossible, to find in Guadalajara. (It's much easier to find them in Denver, believe it or not.)

One of the Mexican states that consumes the most Coca-Cola® is Chiapas, despite claims by locals that the local bottler is consuming a disproportionate amount of communities' water supplies, dumping toxins, displacing natives and engaging in gross human rights abuses, including torture and murder. To be fair, this kind of behavior by the world's favorite soft drink manufacturer is not limited to Mexico, but enough noise has been made worldwide to bring it to the attention of Coca-Cola's® corporate heads. In response, they have created a website called cokefacts.org to put a positive spin on their business practices around the world.

These complaints are valid reasons for which Mexicans should boycott certain American companies, but they are neither the proclaimed reason nor the real reason that will motivate many of them to not buy American on Monday.

The boycott demonstrates the hypocrisy that exists here in Mexico (and in many places around the world) in its love/hate relationship with the United States. Many people here loathe the domination that the imperialist neighbor to the north has in products, the media and certain aspects of culture, yet at the same time, they love to drink Coca-Cola®, spend their pesos on Hollywood blockbuster crap, and watch NFL® football games.

A lot of Mexicans have a deeply ingrained sense that anything Mexican is inferior, and conversely, things that are not Mexican are superior. Shawn has repeatedly been told that he has a greater advantage over a Mexican national in being hired as a teacher, even if the national has years of experience and is perfectly fluent in English, all because Shawn's a white guy from the US. He's also seen people be jealous of his students because they see them talking to the American. Our neighbors think that we're crazy because we try to buy things manufactured by Mexican companies. Living here, one sees a lot of self-effacing behavior that is motivated by trying to be polite. However, it seems at times that it goes beyond simple etiquette, revealing an internalization of the prejudice directed at Mexicans from other, "more advanced" countries.

All the same, even if one thinks of himself as inferior, that does not mean that he likes to have others calling him inferior. Choosing to buy imported products or to spend money to see a foreign film is a decision one can make on her own. However, being criminalized as a felon in a neighboring country, a country that makes plenty of money from her compatriots' labor and their shopping habits, is a slap in the face.

Advertising that constantly bombards Mexicans tells them that they should spend their money to buy into the American dream, and 30% of their labor force works for American companies that have relocated to Mexico so that they can pay less to their employees. They demand that these employees conform to the needs of American customers, requiring them to be fluent in English and not allowing them to take Mexican holidays off. Americans can take advantage of Mexican markets and Mexican labor, but Mexicans should simply be happy to be working, no matter what the conditions. They should not even think of trying to improve their lives through our system. They exist to serve it. It doesn't exist to benefit them.

Mexicans see this inequity and arrogance every day. Indeed, perhaps they have internalized a lot of it. Perhaps that is how they reconcile the fact that they are so intwined in the economy of the United States by paying into it and working for it but are otherwise so unwelcome to participate in it. They love the United States and many things about it. They like a lot of products that come from there. Many have relatives that have become Americans. Many worked there and returned to Mexico, and people they met there still number among their friends. Now they see Americans on television burning Mexican flags and marching with signs that tell them they're not welcome there.

Many will participate in the "Nada Gringo" one-day boycott, a sadly misguided crusade that will accomplish very little. It will penalize the producers of products they like, many of which employ Mexicans, either at home or in the US. Yet it gives participants the opportunity to vent and feel like they have a little self-determination in a world that is so overwhelmingly dominated by US interests, even if they truly do not.

Although he's not participating, our neighbor from across the hall says that he has several friends who will, but they're going out over the weekend to buy things in advance so they do not have to buy them on Monday.

I will be participating in the boycott to see how easy it is to go a day in Mexico without buying anything with American ties. I have a feeling it's going to be pretty difficult.

[Coca-Cola® sales statistics taken from Lloyd Mexico Economic Report (July 2001)]